Midsommar is a waking nightmare

Vilhelm Blomgren and Florence Pugh in Midsommar. Image courtesy A24.

Midsommar milks a lot of terror out of predictability. It's made very clear very early something bad is going to happen, and a passing familiarity with a certain horror genre prepares viewers for how poorly everything ends. Yet the film not only overcomes the obvious result, it uses the inevitability to its advantage to make things even more horrifying than before. Midsommar is a distorted countdown toward doom, with the horror stemming from the time-confused journey to the chaotically drug-soaked finale. 

 

Midsommar stars the ferocious Florence Pugh as Dani, a grad student constantly on the verge of both tears and breaking up with her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor). They stay together though heading into a midsummer festival in Sweden organized by Christian's friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) and his commune. Flanked by Christian's bros Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Mark (Will Poulter), Dani and Christian dive into the life of the peaceful, drug-fueled world of a small town where the sun never fully sets. The festival is not quite as it seems as a sinister undertones percolate up and the trip takes a dramatic turn for the worst.

Midsommar is a master class in film directing. Every shot has a purpose, every frame reveals a lot without telling too much. This film is about as close to technically perfect as a horror film can get, crafting an intense and discomfiting atmosphere that absolutely swallows people into its strangely sunny heart. Even the coldness that results from such technically precise filmmaking adds an untrustworthy layer of removal, an illusion of distance befitting a film about the distance between people and the ease of which it spreads. Kindness in this movie is a falsity, and writer/director Ari Aster's most vicious act is to allow the audience to even slightly pretend everything is safe.

Except for the special effects. Aster loves some blood and guts, showing as much violence as he can and leaving precious little to the imagination; if there's a body to throw down a mountain, he's going to show you exactly how hard it lands. This is a good idea for this film, with the initial shock of a sudden act of violence ultimately melting into the film's otherwise fever dream sense of reality. But the props he uses look terrible, clearly false and resulting in moments that are more funny than jarring. Midsommar depends so much on its atmosphere to carry the proceedings having one element look bad comes perilously close to revealing the facade behind it all. It's more effective on principle for this film to show the gore, but the lack of quality in the gore itself nearly cancels out the benefits.

The bodies are an unfortunate reminder of poor cinema craftsmanship, but the rest of Midsommar is a waking nightmare. It's a bloody trip, an experience to survive and wade through as the wait for the bad things to happen intensifies. And all of this happens in under the sun, with barely any darkness to be found. Fear is conveyed best in the dark, where the imagination replaces the senses and bad dreams overwhelm good nights of sleep. Aster shoots almost everything in the light, which is traditionally safe and warm and a refuge from the evils that lurk in the shadows. How then does one make the light even more terrifying than the dark? The effect is due in part to the copious drug use from the characters that eventually seeps into the filmmaking – it's difficult to have a firm grasp of exactly what's going on over the last 30 minutes.

 

Aster's most interesting trick is playing with the concept of safety in daylight. The film is so bright, so filled with white and purity it should come across as impossible for anything bad to take place. But removing darkness creates a distrust of the light – no community can be this friendly, no place can be this innocent. The thought is disorienting by intention, designed to confuse and to horrify as the validity of those doubts gains more and more truth. The evil in Midsommar hides in plain sight, only revealing itself far too late to do anything about it.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

 

Rating: R

Run time: 140 minutes

Genre: Horror

tl;dr

What Worked: Atmosphere, Florence Pugh, Directing

What Fell Short: Special Effects

What To Watch As Well: The Wicker Man